Today I want to talk about one of the most common questions I get from folks: How can I keep up when meetings are going at such a fast speed? Or how can I keep up with my own thought process when I feel like I want to speak quicker than I'm thinking or vice versa? It's incredibly common! I'm especially hearing this a lot from the startups I support, where I’m coaching everyone, and every single person is saying, “I wish our stand-ups were going a little bit more slowly.” Or I hear, “I wish our client calls were going at more of a measured pace because I can see people are struggling to keep up.”

I see this from all levels of leadership, and I have to say that communication is contagious. If leaders are going at a fast pace, it can negatively affect the flow of the conversation, whether it's because of impatience, not wanting to be a burden on folks, or wanting to get a lot into daily meetings. One takeaway to remember is everyone will be at a disservice if it goes too quickly.

There are a lot of studies around the topic of well-timed, intentional pausing, resulting in people's retention and comprehension going up 30 to 40%. It is no joke! Yet, we are so averse to silence. When people come to see me for something like this, it almost always comes down to what is happening unconsciously under the surface, which might be triggering an imbalance in terms of speed and rate of speech.

At its heart, this comes down to the fact you are not honoring your innate rhythm. Any sort of unconscious behaviors that come out, whether it’s speaking fast or fillers, anything you’re not doing on purpose, are going to be our clues here. 

I have to tell you, I do not vilify any of these behaviors. I think that everything we do in communication has a purpose and a place. If you're doing something unconsciously, it's a signal that something else is going on. That's my one rule. Remember, you can do anything you want, as long as you do it consciously!

What's usually happening when we have unconscious behaviors is that we’re over-prioritizing the audience's perception of us instead of listening to ourselves. Instead of breathing deep and listening to myself, and thinking, “What do I need to contribute here? What’s happening in this present moment?” I am actually lost in thought, thinking about how I’m being perceived. That is what these unconscious behaviors can signify. It's usually an indication we’re deep in analytical thought and missing out on a lot that's happening in the present moment.

The other thing I find that it's a signifier for is we're watching ourselves, and if you're someone who watches yourself, you know who you are (so am I). The layer of effort is actually taking us away from our present moment; away from ourselves. It's making us move further from our innate rhythm. We can only speak with confidence when we are honoring our innate rhythm.

The best way I recommend to think about this is through marrying the breath with eye contact, which works in the virtual world just as well as it works in person. I get to signal to my audience that I’m thinking this way, by consciously leaving the conversation to signal with eye contact, “I'm going to think over here.” You can come back in the middle of a statement, you can even come back and change what you were saying entirely. You are the expert of your own voice and you get to decide!

Honoring your innate rhythm is essential to communicating with confidence at work. Ask yourself when you're feeling rushed, “Whose rhythm are you honoring? Who are you listening to?” This will vary based on the safety you feel within your organization. I help support organizations where voices are wanting to be heard, and where they are wanting to hear those voices.

If you are in a leadership role, let's set an example of spaciousness, of creating space for other types of voices. For those who think more deeply and need time to process and those who feel less comfortable on their feet. Take a moment for people who need to take a deep breath, which is all of us! Let's give each other a moment to pause, to catch up, and reflect, and make sure we're all together in our communication.

Let me know how it goes!